


Together, 1100

by In_agony_and_ecstasy



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Declarations Of Love, Drinking, Dubious Historical Accuracy, Enemies to Lovers, First Time, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Joe, Porn With Plot, Pre Canon, Religion, Religious Guilt, Slow Burn, Smut, Top!Joe, bottom!Nicky, praying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:48:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27524101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/In_agony_and_ecstasy/pseuds/In_agony_and_ecstasy
Summary: A drunken confession. A poem read aloud. A chance thunderstorm. These are the moments that bring them together.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 6
Kudos: 116





	Together, 1100

**Author's Note:**

> I am sorry for any historical inaccuracies, of which I am sure there are quite a few. If you spot an easy fix, feel free to let me know. Also, as usual if my portrayal of either character's faith is inaccurate, or worse, offensive, PLEASE let me know so that I can edit it. 
> 
> (Also, for anyone who has read my other fics, this is essentially a prequel to those, telling the memories Nicky mentions in those but as they are happening and through the eyes of Joe.)
> 
> Thank you for reading!

We were between cities again. As I looked up at the stars from my bed roll, I wondered if this was a perk of being immortal or not. No one else had the luxury of walking and walking and walking anywhere they wanted to go no matter how long it took. No one else had that kind of time to waste. Or that little to live for. The Frank and I had died of dehydration multiple times together now. Only to wake up a few seconds later, still parched, but nonetheless alive and able to keep going. Keep dying and keep waking up and keep going on and on until there was water.

Of course, we hadn’t done that in a while. Those mistakes were for the early days. When there seemed nothing in the world to live for at all except to just _go_.

Now at least, there were words. Drawings on parchment and in the sand. Gestures to one another, in the mornings and at night. Some way of acknowledging the other that wasn’t an attempt to kill one another.

I glanced at him in his bedroll, on the other side of the fire. He slept on his side, curled like a cat, facing the fire, and it illuminated his eyelashes and fair cheekbones. 

Tonight he was restless, because this time of year he had to fast. When he told me this, it was the first time I could remember that there was hardly any problem communicating with me. I had a time of year I had to fast too – though mine wasn’t for another month at least. 

So he wasn’t eating, even though we were travelling. He prayed every night, holding a little wooden cross to his chest, between his delicate hands. 

“Are you hungry?” I asked now, just to talk to him.

He opened his eyes to look at me. “Yes.”

“But you can’t eat, even at night?” I asked, knowing that he’d stopped eating certain things, and stopped eating at certain times, but the exact rules were a mystery to me. I glanced at one of our sacks. We had some dried fruit and some almonds on us. Even though I understood his fast, and knew his time to eat in front of me while I was hungry would come, I still felt guilty. 

“Not on this day. It’s Ash Wednesday,” he said, though that was meaningless to me. “Can’t drink either.” 

I laughed. He missed wine. It had only been a day. 

“I’m glad I never have to miss drink,” I said. 

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re never _tempted_?”

I furrowed my brows at him. 

He swallowed and thought for a second. “It never – It never makes you want it? _Tempts_ you?”

“Oh,” I said, understanding. Then, in my language, repeated, “ _Tempt._ ” 

He echoed, under his breath. 

“No,” I said, “It makes men do things they regret.”

He nodded, but not like he agreed. 

“You don’t think so?” I asked.

“I drink to forget my regrets,” he said.

I gazed at him. Sparks from the fire reflected in his distant eyes. His face looked strained, like he was trying to relax but unable to.

“What else?” I asked, to distract him. “No sex?” 

He snorted then. 

“What?” 

“You know I’m a priest, right?” he asked. 

I blinked at him. “You were, yes.” 

I didn’t like to think of him as a priest. The image was too closely tied to the image of him invading Jerusalem. I refused to think about this because any time I did, it filled me with hate. Hatred I no longer wished to harbor against him. Not when I had witnessed him change. I preferred to think about who he was now. 

“If I wasn’t a priest,” he said, “Yes, sex wouldn’t be allowed during Lent. But because I’m a priest, it’s not allowed at all.”

I sat up on one elbow and gaped at him. He snorted again. Raised an eyebrow at me, in a snarky fashion. My skin felt hot. He did this all the time. The curling up on his side. The snorting. The quirked eyebrow. I exhaled slowly. 

“Never?” I asked. “How can you –”

“Don’t you have to wait until marriage in your faith?” he asked.

“Well, yes, but –”

“You’re tempted,” he said, smirking.

“Of course! You’re not?” 

He shrugged. “ _Lust_ makes me do things I regret.” 

“I don’t understand,” I said. 

“ _Lust_. Need – want – for another’s body. _Lust_.”

“ _Lust_ ,” I repeated, in my language. “Makes you do things you regret?”

“I’m tempted,” he admitted. “I regret. And then I drink.”

He rolled over in his bedroll, facing the darkness. 

…

I strode through one of the many markets we’d come across since arriving in Constantinople. The streets were crowded with people from all places, all cultures, and all faiths. No one would pay any mind to a Muslim Maghrebi travelling with a Catholic Genovian, yet Nico had decided to go off on his own anyway. I’d thought it was odd, especially the way he wouldn’t look at me as he told me he had a personal errand to run, but though I had the vocabulary to inquire further now, I didn’t think we yet had the trust. 

Or – I didn’t know if he thought we did. At this point, there was little I wouldn’t admit to him. He’d saved my life as many times as he killed me when we first met. He’d promised me never to take another’s life over religion ever again. And other than the women in our dreams – distant and intangible – who we had hoped to find here in Constantinople, but had found out, early on through the same dreams, that they’d long gone, we were the only two people in the world with a shared secret neither of us could ever, ever afford to expose. By virtue of that alone, I felt we were meant to trust each other. But I didn’t know if he felt the same. 

In hopes that he would open up to me on his own, I let him go without protest. 

And now I was carrying a rucksack filled with a coarse bread I’d never had before, a few vegetables I recognized, and some fruit I’d never seen before but nevertheless expected Nico to enjoy, on my way back to the room we were renting from an old man and his wife in exchange for repairing his roof, which he was now too old and too frail to attempt on his own. The job would take a few months, which meant a warm bed to sleep in, a fire pit, a latrine, and a basin to wash in for as long – a relief, after two straight weeks in the desert on horseback. 

I passed down an alley I knew would be void of the market crowd. It was somewhat of a detour, but I didn’t mind so much, other than it smelled viscerally of urine. 

On the other side of the alley, I glanced around trying to get my bearings. At night, it was very easy to tell west from east, because of the North Star. But during the day, the sun always moved faster than I noticed – especially since becoming immortal, and I knew that I’d been out long enough that the sun was not on the same side of the sky as it was when I left. 

To my right, a woman stepped through a tattered drape separating the street from the building she was in. Her body and hair were covered but she wasn’t wearing any shoes and she sauntered up to me. 

She said something in a language I didn’t speak, then another, before landing on Arabic. 

“You lost?” she asked. 

“I’ll find my way,” I said, recognizing abruptly the carving above the door she’d stepped out of and knowing what she was about to offer. Knowing what others from the same building would offer, when I turned her down, if I didn’t excuse myself quick.

“You need some company?” she crooned. 

I smiled. “I’m afraid I have company waiting for me.”

She sighed, but turned away from me. Over her shoulder she said, “One of these days I’ll learn to stop approaching the ones handsome enough to fuck for free.”

Another woman I hadn’t noticed before peering through the drape laughed at her coworker, before waving at me. A third woman from the window above the door whistled and I smiled at each before I turned to set off again. 

That was until I heard a voice I recognized, and had to duck back into the same alley I stepped out of to not be seen. 

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Nico easing a couple of delicate hands off his shoulders. He was speaking Ligurian, and I didn’t understand. I knew he was uncomfortable and shaking his head at one of the women who’d just run her fingers through his shoulder-length hair. He handed her a few coins, and the way she responded made it look as though she was protesting, trying to give the coins back. But Nico raised his hands, refusing, before stomping off in the opposite direction of home. 

I waited a long minute before stepping back out from the alley and approaching the women, who were still staring at him now a little ways off. 

“Change your mind?” one of them asked me when she noticed I was there. 

“No, I – what was that about?” I asked, gesturing to Nico, just as he disappeared around a corner. 

The woman shook her head, not like “no” but like “who knows?”

A different woman piped up, first in Ligurian, before the first woman I spoke to corrected her. She switched to Arabic. 

“He came here a bit ago asking for a girl. When we asked him to pick somebody he picked me without even looking. We were upstairs and started doing business but – I don’t know what happened. He asked me to stop and he – Just sat on the bed for a while with his head in his hands.”

“Praying?” A different woman asked. 

“No – I don’t think so. Stage fright, I bet.”

“Or performance anxiety.”

“Guilt maybe, you know. First time with a whore.”

“First time period?” 

All of their speculation melted into background static as I stared off in the direction Nico had gone. Then I was off, as quickly as he’d been, after him.

What I would say, I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t tell him I saw him. It would humiliate him. This was clearly the private matter he’d intended to take care of. Yet, I also couldn’t stand the thought of him out on his own in this state. More than anything I wanted to comfort him, even if I didn’t entirely understand what was wrong. 

He wasn’t a priest anymore. He didn’t even claim to be one anymore. He was praying less these days than ever before. But he was still faithful, and he still wasn’t married, and so if he’d actually gone through with it I could understand the guilt. But he hadn’t. 

So was it shame? That I supposed I could understand too, though I scarcely met a man in my life who thought it was as shameful to sleep with a prostitute as their mothers, sisters and wives did. Either that, or they had no shame in general.

Nico wasn’t like that though, I reminded myself, as I rounded the same corner he had earlier. Nico felt things deeply and held himself to an impossible standard and took on the weight of the world from the moment he woke to the moment he fell back asleep. Not even God could convince that man to forgive himself for the flaw of being human.

It wasn’t long down the street perpendicular to the market that I came across the church. The front doors, embellished with expert wood-carvings and heavy door knockers, were wide open. The inside pews were illuminated by candles lit along the isle and several people were on their knees praying. I couldn’t see Nico – even if it was just his silhouette or the back of his head, I would know him – and so I approached the entryway.

A priest approached me. I only knew he was a priest because of his haircut and attire. No one got that haircut unless God made him, and his robes were much too well-kept to be everyday-wear. 

“Are you here to confess?” he asked, brows furrowing at me. He had spoken Arabic immediately, and was currently glancing me over. Though nothing about my appearance was explicitly indicative of being Muslim, he was obviously skeptical. “Or perhaps…convert?”

“No, I’m –looking for a friend,” I said, wincing, because that word hurt my ears. “He might be here.”

The priest raised his eyebrow. “What does he look like?”

“He’s uh…” I said, suddenly at a loss for words. Naturally, I knew what Nico looked like to _me_. I’d written poetry about it. But I couldn’t exactly tell this man I felt like I was drowning every time I looked in his oceanic eyes or that I could spend a millennia trying to sculpt a nose as elegantly curved as the arch of his and never get it right or that his body –

I shook my head to clear it. “He’s got a mole right here,” I said, placing my finger on the exact corresponding spot on the right side of my chin. 

“Oh, him,” the priest said, wearing a friendly smile. “He’s in confession now. Shouldn’t be too long if you’d like to wait around.” 

Of course he was. I sighed, and nodded at the man. Though once he disappeared back behind the heavy front doors I spun around and headed for home, wishing to wash my mind of the whole day. 

At home, I sat in bed up against the wall for hours, sketching, save for breaks to eat, pray and use the latrine. I covered half a dozen whole pages with images of the vegetables I purchased, before getting bored and drawing our horses, before getting desperately bored, and giving into drawing Nico which was all I had really wanted to draw from the beginning, but had hesitated to let myself draw ever since he caught me sketching him a few weeks ago after dozing by the fire and leaving the drawing out. 

His hands, the width of his shoulders, his collarbones, the curve of his spine, his ear from behind, with threads of hair tucked behind it, him looking down, with his irises just visible in the gaps between eyelashes… 

I’d spent maybe an hour drawing the vegetables and horses. I spent the rest of the night drawing Nico. The first hour lasted much longer than the rest of the night. 

Well after the sunset and Isha, Nico arrived home, falling through the door and speaking between hiccups. 

“Nico!” I called, rubbing at my eyes to wake myself up. “Where have you –”

But I didn’t finish. I could smell the alcohol on him. He’d been at the tavern all night. 

“Yusuf…Yusuf,” he said, and flopped onto the bed next to me. 

I sat up to look down at him, illuminated by candlelight. “You can’t do this to me. What if something had happened to you? I would have never –”

Then his fingers were curling in my hair. “Yus – uf,” he crooned, again. “Don’t be mad. Don’t – be mad. I like your hair.”

I blinked at him. 

“Where I’m from,” he started, eyes barely staying open as he pulled on one of my curls and released it, so that it recoiled. “We don’t like your hair. But I do. I love your hair.”

And then he paralyzed me by sitting up – grunting as he did so – to press his nose into my beard. His fingers roamed over my scalp, and then to my horror, down my neck and into my tunic, to trail his fingers through my chest hair. 

“All of it,” he said, and then he giggled into my neck. “Every hair. Even the ones I haven’t seen.” 

He hiccupped again, before removing his hand from my tunic.

“Sorry,” he said, babbling now, “Sorry. I – I know I’m not _supposed to_. I’m not _supposed to_ like your hair. _Supposed to_ touch your chest or see you _naked_. I’m not _supposed to_ want to see you _naked_.”

“Nico – Nico, I don’t understand,” I said, “You’re not speaking –”

But he continued in Ligurian, not making but the barest sense to me.

“But I want it,” he slurred. “And not with her. I wanted to want it with her but I didn’t. I couldn’t even – even _pretend_ to want her. _Which_ is why – if I die – I’ll go to Hell. So – what’s stopping me? I _served in a cursed war_ and _murdered innocent_ people so that I could be _rewarded in an afterlife_ I _might_ never get by a God who hates me. I am _already_ the _demon I was warned against_. I can’t _change_ that. I can’t _change_ what I am. What I want. What I _believe_. The _least I should_ do is –”

And then he trailed the pad of his thumb along my lips. 

“ _Commit_ ,” he said, “To the _wrongs I yearn for_.”

I shook my head at him, in confusion. His eyes were welling up but I didn’t understand why. I knew it had something to do with the woman at the brothel today but not exactly what. I opened my mouth to reassure him, to comfort him, in any way I could but he cut me off.

He cut me off by curling his hand around the nape of my neck and pulling me in for a kiss.

He missed my lips – partly because, in shock, I pulled away, and partly because his depth perception was off – and buried his face in my beard. 

His head smacked down against the pillow again. 

“Right,” he said, “Right. You – A wife. Not me. A wife. Someday. Sorry, Yusuf. I’m so sorry I like your hair.”

I stared at him in stunned silence as his teary eyes fluttered shut. Moments later, he was snoring like I’d never heard before, flat on his back like I’d never seen before. 

I sunk back into the blankets beside him, but didn’t sleep. I spent the night, staring at the starless ceiling, listening to him snore. 

… 

The following morning, he couldn’t remember what had happened. I was both relieved and disappointed. 

Most nights we stayed there, Nico left in the evenings. Either for church or a tavern. Or both. Though, he never came home as a drunk again. Never so drunk that in the morning he couldn’t remember. 

I tried to talk to him about it, but he shrugged it off every time, using the excuse that we would be travelling again soon and there would be few such luxuries as wine anyway. Because of this, when we decided to leave a couple of months ago, to head back to Jerusalem – because one night, he woke me to tell me it wasn’t enough for him to do no harm anymore; he was thinking of the city he felled and his army among others just like his continuing their genocide, and he needed to go back, needed to help the people he’d hurt, needed to fight the people who were hurting them, and _needed_ to do what he called penance – I was relieved to be travelling again, relieved to be headed back to Jerusalem, and relieved to be travelling with someone I knew to be on my side. 

Out in the wilderness, nothing but our belongings, horses and a fire to keep us company, Nico was most how I liked him. He seemed more comfortable. Or maybe comfortable wasn’t the word. But he didn’t look so self-conscious all the time. 

Tonight, after we both separately prayed, we lay on our backs looking up at the stars. We had taken to sleeping back-to-back, both because we could protect one another this way, and because the nights were cool enough that sleeping without sharing one another’s heat was impossible. I could feel the warmth of his arm inches from mine. 

He was going to sing to me tonight, which had become a nightly routine. I knew tonight was different though. My stomach ached because of it. 

It had taken so long to convince him. Even after I’d started showing him my art, I hadn’t been able to convince him to sing, which he claimed was more or less his only pastime related to religion before we met, before he invaded Jerusalem. 

And even still, he only gave in because he felt sorry for me. And guilty. I’d had a nightmare about the war, which I couldn’t even bring up around him without his face turning sickly anymore. Let alone bringing it up while trembling, and recounting the death of a childhood friend of mine I’d witnessed the first day of the invasion. 

My thoughts were so far removed from how recounting my dream might have affected him, that when he started to sing I was momentarily speechless. 

Then I didn’t want to speak. 

I just wanted to listen. 

All I’d wanted to do since he first sung to me, was listen. I didn’t understand any of it. He only knew songs and hymns in his own language. 

After the first time he sang to me, I begged him to every night. He tried to use every available excuse. He was too tired. I didn’t understand the songs anyway. He only knew a handful, and I would get sick of them if I heard them too much. 

Each one of these excuses he immediately threw out the moment I agreed to read my poetry to him if he sang to me. Though he’d already seen my art, I’d managed to keep my poetry private. He couldn’t read Arabic. 

Ever since, he sang to me, and then I read to him. But tonight, desperate to get it over with lest I back out, I offered to read first. 

I cleared my throat now. In my hand, I held parchment with the poem I’d most recently written, the one I intended to recite tonight. 

Nico turned his head my way, and smiled somewhat smugly. Quirking his eyebrow. 

“Ready when you are,” he said, just to emphasize how long I’d kept him waiting. 

I exhaled. “It’s not my best work.”

“It doesn’t need to be,” he said, sweetly, sincerely. 

“I don’t even know if it’s done yet,” I said. “I just wrote it.”

“I’ll like it,” he said. 

“You won’t understand all the words.” 

“I will like the sounds.” 

“You don’t know what it’s about.” 

He shrugged. “I don’t need to. I know I’ll like it.”

“It’s about you,” I blurted, before I chickened out.

Nico looked surprised. “It is?”

I nodded, and with trembling hands, unfolded the parchment I’d written the poem on. I hesitated.

“Yusuf,” Nico said, and placed his hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to. You know you don’t have to, right?”

I smiled at him. Somehow, it was this statement more than any other that gave me the courage I needed. 

“I know,” I said. “But I want to.”

He smiled at me. A real, genuine smile, and I inhaled deeply like I was seeing the night sky for the first time. It had taken _months_ of us travelling together for him to smile in my presence for the very first time, and it was only because he thought I wasn’t paying attention to him, cooing under his breath at our newly purchased horses. And even that smile, was not like this smile. He had so many, most of which were guarded, subdued, bare ghosts of his real smile. This one – It made my heart ache. 

I looked at the paper, cleared my throat, and began, 

“All that lives dies. Even flowers,  
who without the _inevitability_  
of _wilting_ , could not be beautiful  
in _bloom_. What about love?  
Love doesn’t die, but  
all that loves, does.  
Then I met you, who  
_planted a_ flower in my heart,  
that _blooms_ all year,  
and _wilts_ when I die.  
This flower, like me – a _perennial_ ,  
always returns.”

I swallowed, staring up at the sky. I could hear his breaths beside me. He was quiet for a moment too long – either something was wrong or he didn’t understand the poem. I turned my head to look him in the eyes, and they were blown wide in the candlelight, glittering.

I opened my mouth to speak, but he plunged, pressing his lips against mine and clinging to me as if he’d otherwise sink. His lips were frantic, breaths coming out in gasps, fingers tangling in my hair and a sweet sound in the back of his throat. I kissed back, less feverishly if only because I was so stunned, felt like my thoughts were trudging through quicksand. Every sense of mine overwhelmed by what was happening – almost unable to believe, what was happening, and constantly forcing my mind to double-check it’s reality. Was I dreaming? Hallucinating? Gone mad from the sun? 

But no, it was all real. His lips were still against my own, full and soft and tender. Finally, I caught up with him, caught up enough to properly kiss back, kiss him the way I’d ached to, the way he deserved, and to cradle his head in my hand and thread my fingers through his hair, to caress his freshly-shaven face in the other, my thumb resting on his cheekbone and feeling that it was damp.

When we finally parted, his hand was pressed against my chest, no doubt feeling how urgently my heart pounded against its cage.

“Your heart,” he said. “I’m there?”

I smiled at him, and let out a small huff of a laugh. That was, I supposed, the gist of my poem.

“Yes,” I said.

Then he reached for one of my hands and placed it against his own chest. His heart kept pace with my own. 

“You’re here,” he breathed. 

I smiled at him. “ _Alhamdulillah._ ”

The reference to God widened his eyes, and for a moment I was afraid he was about to snap out of – whatever this was, whatever we were now. I pictured him back at the church, confessing that he’d kissed me and the thought pierced my heart. 

“Nico?” I asked. 

“I forgot, do you still want me to sing?” he asked, and I exhaled in relief. 

I shook my head. “I want to _kiss_ you.”

He looked confused and so I kissed him. “ _Kiss_ ,” I said in Arabic.

“ _Kiss_ ,” he said in Ligurian. “Kiss me.”

I grinned, before kissing him again and again and again. 

…

Before it even happened, it seemed, it was over. One minute, _less_ than one minute, I was on top of him, kissing his ear and throat and hand – when he tried to douse the sweet sounds escaping his throat, I couldn’t bear that – hips slotted against hips, cocks exposed and leaking from blissful friction against one another, and the next moment, seconds after release, breathing heavy and filled with glowing warmth – he was already gone. Run away from me with his day clothes and his rosary praying. Praying through tears, speaking too quickly, and in his thickest accent, pointedly turned away from me. 

I tried to approach him. Tried to get him to talk to me, tell me what I’d done. Tried to comfort him, placing a hand on his back, in his hair – and he just jerked away from me. 

I thought, I should leave him alone. He’d calm down in a few minutes and open up to me. He always did now, ever since I first kissed him a few months before this. We kept less from each other, and talked more. He’d let his guard down around me. He let himself be vulnerable around me. He trusted me. Even when he was angry, or hurt, or annoyed, or sad, or regretful. Whatever it was, he no longer attempted to hide it from me or bottle it up. Instead, he always went well out of his way to describe in ways I would understand, what he was feeling. 

But the sun went down, and he still didn’t talk. All day following, my stomach weighed heavier and heavier. I prayed half-heartedly that morning, and by night, prayed quite desperately. 

I considered trying to get him to eat, but knew he wouldn’t. By the second day, I knew this wasn’t just about me, or what we did. It was between him and his God, and after all we’d been through, I wouldn’t dare interrupt that. He was fasting, and praying, and going without sleep. He would do this to the point of exhaustion, I figured, though it didn’t ease the weight in my gut any.

On the third day I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I thought he couldn’t either. He hadn’t drunk any water or wine, hadn’t eaten any food, hadn’t slept that I had seen – all he’d done was pray. At this point, it didn’t even matter if he talked to me. I wasn’t going to let him die of neglect just because he’d come back.

I walked up to him, crouched by the very pond he’d witnessed me bathe in by accident – which got us into this mess to begin with, I cursed now, because things had been going so well the past few months just kissing and holding him at night – and sat down beside him. I exhaled deeply, listening to him pray under his breath with his eyes closed, purposely ignoring me.

“Nicolò,” I said, not expecting him to respond. I glanced at his expression. His face was tightened with pain, the way it would be if he was removing a blade from his flesh. It pained me to see it. He always looked like this when he prayed. I didn’t understand the point of appealing to a God that made him feel like this.

From what I had gathered about his God, I didn’t like Him much. Nico was expected to feel guilty all the time. To feel afraid, all the time. The way he looked when he spoke of his God had changed since we met – a year and a half ago now? Two? Ever since becoming immortal keeping track of time had felt significantly less important. When we first met, he looked very proud when he spoke of his God. We barely understood each other then, but I recognized the pride in his face. It wasn’t the same pride I had for mine. His pride came from a sense of superiority. He only knew how to lift his God up by putting my God down. Which explained the war, and of course, made me seethe.

But as time went on, that pride dwindled. Changed form. He expressed pride in his God when looking at nature. The horses we’d bought. The mountains we’d passed. The fruit we’d eaten. The people we’d met. Pride in his God for what He’d created. 

What my God, had also, created.

And everything changed when he began speaking of his God in ways that, overall, applied to my God too. 

He seemed happier. Less obligated to feel this kind of way. Or to hold it above the heads of my people in _order_ to feel this way.

I knew from watching this change in him that he was capable of immense compassion and love for humanity. I knew he was a deeply good person, who was confused, and scared, and full of regret. And then, of course, these beliefs of mine were solidified in truth the moment he told me he needed to return to Jerusalem to fight his army and protect my people because he needed to make up for what he’d done. I knew he needed my help. 

It abruptly occurred to me why he was so upset. Loving me was the last straw for him. The last shred of the world he knew before dying the first time was now gone for good. It had been a long time going, so long now that he’d stopped fighting it, stopped even noticing it, until now, and the shock that it was gone had hit him full force all at once. Nothing made sense to him anymore. Nothing was the way it was supposed to be. 

He loved his enemy. 

I had to make the world make sense to him again. 

“ _I love you, Nicolò,_ ” I said to him then, in my best Ligurian. “ _That isn’t something I can help. So tell me, how could I love you if it isn’t my free will and it also isn’t meant to be?_ ”

He stopped praying and lifted his head. He didn’t look at me, right away. His brow had furrowed, and he was blinking his glossy sea-deep eyes too much. I hoped he understood what I meant in what I said. That if it wasn’t free will, which I could confirm, it _had_ to be meant to be, and if it was meant to be, it _had_ to be God’s will. That was the only explanation, and one that, very much, still abided by his understanding of the world. An explanation, I hoped, he’d therefore be able to accept. 

He turned his head to look at me. My heart panged with longing. His hair was tangled and greasy from days untouched. His skin was pale, and clammy, from not eating or drinking. Dark crescents bracketed his eyes from not sleeping. His hands looked dry and stiff from the weather and clutching the rosary for so long. I ached to take care of him, but I would not touch him until –

He slumped against me, clutching onto my clothing and crying into my shoulder. For a moment I couldn’t move, afraid that if I did, I would scare him off again. But then, slowly, like approaching a bird, I wrapped my arms around him. Once my hands rested on him, I finally did what I’d been dying to do, and pulled him tightly into my chest, gripping onto his body and burying my nose in his hair. 

I didn’t say another thing for hours, and neither did he. I just let him cry until he couldn’t anymore. Until he was spent, and his eyes were red, and the sun had set. I didn’t even pull away to pray, which I had done only a handful of times in my life and only just realized when he brought it up to me.

“Yusuf,” he said, “Salat.”

“It’s okay, my heart,” I ushered into his hair. “My God will understand.”

At this, I was rewarded with one of his snorts, and my heart felt bruised it was so tender for him. 

“What a world you live in,” he said.

I kissed his head and tilted his chin up so that he faced me. “You live in it too.”

We finally stood. He had difficulty, stiff and weak as he was from kneeling for so long. He leaned against me as we retreated to the fire pit we’d created days prior. As I got the fire going, he chewed on some figs and guzzled some water. Then some wine, and I realized I hadn’t hardly seen him drink any alcohol since we still lived in Constantinople. I smiled at this, when he wasn’t looking. 

Before bed, I eased in beside him, pulling the one blanket we owned and a couple of animal skins we’d traded for over the both of us, before wrapping my arm around his waist. 

But he turned over to face me then, his face dark when turned away from the fire. He leaned in to kiss me. 

I kissed back, but despite myself, with hesitation.

“I’ve scared you,” he whispered, knowing immediately.

“I never want to see you like that again.”

His eyes searched mine. He placed a hand on my cheek. 

“So you won’t – touch me, again?” he asked, blushing beautifully. 

I pulled him in, pressing his chest up against me, tightly enough I could feel his heartbeat. Then I rested my forehead against his. 

“We have all of time,” I said.

“I want you now,” he responded, and kissed me again, deepening it, to drive home his point. Arousal stirred within me immediately, but I parted from him and resisted. 

“I know. But you’re not ready,” I said, and then, for good measure, “ _I’m_ not ready.”

He was silent for a moment, wearing his unreadable expression that could drive me mad. 

He nodded. And then, in Arabic, “ _I love you,_ Yusuf.”

A shudder ran down my spine. Before my confession to him earlier, we’d never said this to one another. I didn’t even know he knew how to say it in my language. He must have learned it from someone else, during our time in Constantinople. I hadn’t anticipated the sheer joy it would bring me to hear it, or to think he might have asked someone how to say it months ago, so that he could say it to me when the time came. My chest felt full of light. 

“ _I love you, too,_ ” I said in Ligurian, and he kissed me, deeply, before turning over again. 

…

We rode our horses through the storm for what felt like days – though it was an hour at most – before reaching the outskirts of the nearest city. But even with its silhouette barely visible on the horizon, we couldn’t risk being out in this weather long enough to find somewhere to tie our horses and pay for a night at an inn.

It was Nico who made the snap decision to steer the horses into a barn with the doors left open. I followed without question. We’d apologize to the owners when the storm settled. Trade them something. Labor if we had to. Or we’d leave something behind. But there was lightning in my periphery and my horse was wide-eyed with fear. I worried it would take just one strong boom of thunder to lose control of her. 

Inside the barn, Nico dismounted first, arms raised as if someone might have been hiding in one of the stable stalls ready to jump us.

But by the time I dismounted, it became clear the opposite was true. Not only were there no people ready to ambush, there were no horses. No tools hung on the hooks in wood walls. No water or hay in the mangers, no droppings on the ground. 

Nico spun around to face me.

“I think it’s –” He tilted his head back, searching for a word in his language I would understand, or a word in mine he knew, that was close to what he wanted to say. 

“There’s no one here,” he said, in Arabic. “No one lives here.”

“It’s _abandoned_ ,” I said, “They left and now it’s _abandoned_.”

He made a sound I never heard before but would from here on recognize to mean abandoned. 

I smiled at him. 

“Tie the horses?” he asked, “I’ll get a fire going.”

I did as he said and by the time I was done he’d broken a manger down to wood scraps with his sword, gathered some hay and started a fire. This made me smile, for some reason. When we started travelling together, one of the first challenges we faced as companions was starting a fire. Neither of us could speak to each other, and both of us all our lives had either relied on others to start a fire or had gone without. 

The first time involved a lot of cursing at one another, a lot of rude gestures, me storming off at one point, only to return and find that Nico had gotten it smoking. He gestured to me – the first useful gesture, the first one not used as an insult at one another – to help him with shimmying the wood and blowing on it. With my help, we were able to get a fire going strong enough to keep us warm through the night and cook our food over. It was the first time I saw any hint of his smile. No teeth, and only the corners turned up the slightest. But that was all it took, really. I didn’t fall for him that moment, but I’d taken the first step toward the edge. 

I sat down beside him now, in front of the fire, where he’d begun unpacking our things for the night. 

“We can sleep there,” he said, gesturing to an empty stall still lined with a fair amount of hay. 

I tucked a couple strands of wet hair behind his ear, about to kiss him. But I remembered I had to pray, and might as well get that out of the way before dinner. 

As if reading my mind, he said, “Oh, that’s right. You might as well pray, while you’re still wet.” 

I stepped outside to orient myself. It was much more difficult to determine which direction was East without the sun or stars available, but from what I could tell, the city we’d been headed toward all day was west, so I strode to one side of the barn – where I’d be somewhat shielded from the rain, given it was falling at an angle, and the rooftop reached beyond the wall some. I cleansed myself, my hair, face, hands, and feet, though feeling a bit silly about it since I was already wet. But it would feel wrong not to. Then I stepped back inside, faced the opposite direction of the city, and prayed. 

Nico sat by the fire, shivering, presumably trying to dry off, watching me. It used to make me feel self-conscious, or feel some need to make it a performance, as if it might impress him or intimidate him. But now, I felt comforted by it.

When I was done, I strode up to him and sat down beside him. I was equally drenched and cold from the rain. I raised my hands and hovered them within the glow of the fire. 

“Are you hungry?” Nico asked. 

I turned my head to look at him, and initially, to answer. But the sight of him stole my voice. His hair still wet and tucked behind his ears. His damp skin glistening in the light. His eyes sparkling with flecks of orange sparks reflecting in them. His lips looked so soft, like the rest of his skin. I exhaled slowly. 

“No,” I said, “I think I will just go to bed.”

“Right now?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowing. “You just sat down. Won’t you read to me?”

I stood up then, about to turn into the stall he laid our bedrolls and blankets out in. “My heart, I will read to you twice as long tomorrow.”

He stood then and reached for me, just as I was about to step further away. 

“Yusuf,” he said, and pulled my hand up to place it over his heart. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all. It’s been a long day travelling.”

A long time since last I touched him. Since last I touched myself. I ached, which was normally tolerable, but when travelling with someone so irresistible for so long, and resisting the whole time, I was exhausted and desperate to sleep it off. Which would be difficult with him in my arms, the only way he or I could stand to sleep anymore. But the warmth of his body against me, my hips pressed so close to his –

I shook my head to clear it. Rubbed my eyes. “I’m tired, my heart. That’s all.”

Nico looked like he didn’t believe me. He searched my eyes, and then, as if giving up, glanced over me and gestured to my wet clothes. 

“Are you going to sleep like that?”

I smiled at him. “I’ll change first.”

At that, he reached up to unwrap my headscarf for me. As he did, something flitted in his eyes, as if something caught his attention, and he pressed the scarf to his nose.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Smells like you.” 

“I bet it does, after wearing it all day.” 

“So does your hair,” he said, and then raised his hands up to curl his fingers in my hair. He leaned in, pressing his nose against my beard, and inhaled. “I love your hair.”

Then he pressed his hand against my chest, and his eyes glazed over. “All of it.”

He swallowed. A long second passed between us, nothing but the sound of the rain on the roof. Then he said, “All of you.”

His eyes met mine then, and neither of us could hold back. Our lips met at once, kissing hungrily and at the same time tentatively. Both pushing forward and pulling back. His body against me, fingers in my hair, tongue on my lips, and it all left me shaking because this was different. This was new.

I waited for him to make the next move. I needed to know he was ready this time. That he could handle it. Eventually he continued to undress me, then I him, each of us taking turns removing something from the others body. Until we were standing, naked in the firelight, bodies pressed against one another, hearts pounding under one another’s fingertips, goosebumps raised everywhere, and trembling. He was trembling even more than I was. 

“Are you alright?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even despite how breathless I was at the sensation of his length pressed into the dip at my hipbone. 

His gaze met mine and by way of answer he just kept kissing me. 

I guided him to our bed roll, and together the both of us eased on to it. While continuing to kiss him, I reached blindly for the rucksack in which we kept our few rations of foods, and even fewer ingredients used to make them taste somewhat better. Finally, my fingers found the olive oil, something we’d bought a long time ago and rationed very carefully much to Nico’s distaste, because we neither wanted to run out of it while traveling, nor wanted to have to keep buying it all the time, when we usually more desperately needed actual food. It was a luxury. One I would, repeatedly, thank God for later.

Nico’s lips parted from mine to stare at the oil. 

“You know what this is for?” I asked, suddenly worried he might be more sheltered than I thought. 

He snorted. “I was a priest not a _prude_.”

“A what?” I asked. 

“Forget it,” he said, laughing to himself. Then his face sobered. “Will it hurt a lot?”

“A little,” I said. “Are you – are you certain you want to? I could – uh – be the one in that – like you are now, if you want, or we could –”

He kissed me softly, placing one hand on my cheek as he did so. “I want to. More than anything.” 

I let out a shaky exhale, and nodded at him. I trailed my hand down his chest, as smooth and pale as marble – though not as firm, I noted, delighted by the softness of his belly – over his length and between his thighs, before spreading them somewhat. I cupped the right side of his magnificent ass, the sight of which had tortured me since well before I even knew I had feelings for him. I thought about telling him this, but wasn’t sure how, and in any case I was worried it would embarrass him, or overwhelm him. So I just gently squeezed and savored the feeling. 

Nico bit his lip at this, either out of desire or nerves, I couldn’t tell. Then he touched me too, hands lingering on my chest, swirling his fingers in the hair there, and then lowering enough to curl his masculine hand around my cock and stroke. I pressed my lips together tightly, gathering the strength to pull away from him, if only a few inches, so that we could continue. 

Carefully, I poured some of the oil in my hand and with my thumb spread it over my fingers. 

But I hesitated before pressing into him. There was a lot I wanted to say to him, and I didn’t know how to say any of it in his language, or in my own with words he’d understand. I wanted to tell him that it would feel better if he relaxed. That it would hurt at first, but I promised it wouldn’t last. That he should tell me what he wanted me to keep doing, or if he wanted me to stop. 

“Do you trust me?” I finally asked. Trust had not been an easy word to convey to one another when we first started learning one another’s language – but it had been crucial to know, in those early days when our relationship hung on by a thread and either one of us thought the other might turn against us at any moment. It had been ages, since then, it seemed. Ages since I hadn’t trusted him with my life or heart. 

“I trust you,” he whispered, and then inched his legs that much further apart for me. 

I swallowed, let out another long breath, and began to press into him with my middle finger. His breath caught, and I watched his expression change. At first tight, then controlled, then relaxed. While inching in and out slowly, I kissed along his chest and stomach, and sucked marks into his naval that disappeared right away. Nico sighed again, and placed his hand on my head, curling his fingers in my hair as I inserted another finger. This time he moaned, almost inaudibly, but enough to make my aching length throb. 

“You are so beautiful, Nicolò,” I whispered against his skin. I wanted to say so much more. _So_ much more, and in words that hadn’t been spoken so frequently on the lips of millions of others. But I knew he wouldn’t understand and I didn’t want to be giving Arabic lessons while pleasuring him. 

His fingers tightened in my hair as I pressed upward with the pads of my fingers, rotating them gently the same way my first lover did to me, and hoping to achieve the same affect in him. 

Nico cursed – I only knew it was a curse because of his tone. He had not taught me how to curse in Ligurian, nor had I taught him how to in Arabic. It wasn’t exactly easy, given how difficult it was to explain what the words meant and how or when to use them in a way that sounded natural. But I knew it when I heard it.

I wanted to hear more. 

With my hand I stroked him slowly, pulling his foreskin back and forth over the head of his cock. His breathing became heavy, and he was saying something I couldn’t understand but I had never heard him like this. Better than him singing.

I licked my lips, and, unable to resist tasting him, eased him into my mouth. At that he cried my name, and clapped a hand over his mouth just as quickly. With my free hand I pulled it away and laced our fingers together. He kept moaning as I used both my fingers and my mouth, and finally, when I thought I might come from the sound alone, he pulled away from me.

“Nico?” I asked, at first worried, but his hand slid out of my hair and around the nape of my neck, pulling me toward him.

“Yusuf,” he said, “I – Please. I want you to – I want you.”

A shudder ran down my spine, and I began feverishly kissing him again. I used my hand to help ease into him. It took a minute, long enough that Nico got impatient and reached down to help me in – a gesture so enticing I knew I would be fantasizing about it for weeks – and finally, I sunk in. 

His name escaped my throat immediately, and I braced myself on either side of his shoulders, holding myself still, keeping my eyes shut. This too, I had only done once before and it paled in comparison to how it felt with Nico. How he looked underneath me, how tight he felt, how his fingers in my hair and nails in my back made me long for him. I felt utterly helpless in his arms. 

After a moment of recovery, I sought his eyes, and found them pinched shut. 

“Nico?” I asked, cupping his cheek with one of my hands. 

He let out a breath, and controlled his expression. “Please.”

“Are you sure you –”

He kissed me then, cradling my face in his hands, overwhelming me with his tongue and wrapping his legs tightly around my waist. 

He parted, and said, “ _Please_.”

I swallowed, nodded, and began to thrust. 

We coiled more tightly around one another, softly at first as I kept my pace slow, and then clinging, clawing, as I sped up, and went deeper, harder. His skin along the length of my body made me shiver, and my stomach flutter. His eyes flitted back for a moment, his fingers dug in my back, and he moaned. I couldn’t tear my eyes from him, even when doing so would help slow the ecstasy of being inside him from rising higher so quickly within me. He was proof of God if I ever saw it.

Nico tried to cover his mouth again, because he was moaning, and cursing, and uttering sentences I didn’t have the wherewithal to even begin to translate in my head. But his cheeks were flushed now and his back was arched, and he was so beautiful I couldn’t last. I pulled that hand he’d kept over his mouth for all but a moment and kissed him, hungrily and sloppily and through heavy breaths. 

“Nico,” I breathed, “I – I –”

I had no idea how to tell him I was about to come. But he grinned at me, eyes nearly shut, not like he was amused at my awkward stammering either. But like he was overcome with happiness. The full force of his smile – the radiance that rivaled the moon and stars - 

And then, “I know, I know, Yusuf. Me too.”

“What can I do?” I breathed. My pace was erratic now, my body trembling with the struggle of keeping myself from falling over the edge. 

“Your hand?” he pleaded, “Please, my love – my heart – I beg you.”

My hand was already on him the moment he asked, and I slowed my own rhythm, not just so that I could last but so that I could keep my hand steady and purposeful on him. As I did, he dug his fingers into my back and arched exquisitely again. His head tilted back as he moaned, and moaned, with each stroke louder than a moment before. And finally, at the exact second he wailed my name I felt him spill over my hand, leaving him panting. 

A second later he was holding my face in his hands, kissing me, cooing in Ligurian, and then, telling me he loved me in Arabic against my ear. This was what it took. I moaned as the pleasure crested and overflowed inside of me, resonating for so long when I came back to reality and all my senses returned, the sweat on our skin had already cooled. 

“My God,” I breathed. 

Nico brushed a couple of curls, slick to my skin, off my forehead before cradling my face. He was grinning. 

“My heart,” I said then, “You’ll break me.”

He laughed, and I eased out of him, though didn’t pull away from him. 

“What do you think, now that you know all of me?” he whispered in the darkness.

I whipped my head to look at him. Then I perched up on one elbow. “My love I have not begun to know you.”

To demonstrate this, I tilted his head to kiss behind his ear. I lifted his arm and kissed underneath it. I eased down his stomach and kissed his bellybutton, then his knee, then lifted his foot, and he yelped. 

“Don’t! My feet aren’t clean, Yusuf!” 

I gave him an amused look, and was tempted to remind him where my mouth was not too long ago, but let it go and instead kissed his ankle. 

“See? All these places on your body I have only just met,” I said, “It will take me centuries to know all of you the way I want to.” 

He smiled sweetly at me as I scooted back up to rest my head on his chest. 

“Centuries…Do you think you will get _bored_ with me someday? What if –” 

“I don’t know what that means, but no,” I said, because I heard the negative tone. 

“It means…having nothing you want to do,” he said. 

“Ah, _boredom_ ,” I said, and waited for him to repeat it. Then I added, “No. I will always want to do you.”

He snorted and I kissed him.

“How do you know?” he asked. 

“I have faith,” I said, simply. “The sun will rise tomorrow. God is real and good. I will always love you.” 

He cupped my cheek in his hand. “I can’t believe you’re real.” 

“What about you?” I asked, only just then realizing he might have his doubts. I held my breath. 

“Me?” he asked, all innocently. “My love, I _grieve_ your lips the moment they’re gone. If I am one day bored of your lips think of me as dead.”

“ _Grieve_?” I asked repeating the sound he made. 

“The pain,” he said, placing his hand over his heart, “You feel right here when someone dies. That pain you carry with you forever.”

“ _Grief_ ,” I said in Arabic then. 

“ _Grief_ ,” he repeated, “Is what I feel when I am not kissing you, and that is just what I feel for your lips. I can’t imagine the pain of life without all of you. It is a truth of my life now, like…like the army was.”

His eyes darkened just mentioning it, but I tilted his chin to look at me and they lightened. 

“Come here,” I said, and though my intentions were initially comfort, the moment our lips touched the heat of our passion from earlier flared up once again. As I hitched his leg over my hip, he surprised me by rolling us over so that he was straddling me. I gripped onto his hips and looked up at him just as he lifted himself up on his knees, reached behind him for my length, and eased back down on to me. 

“Oh my God,” we both moaned together, in our respective languages. 

He laughed then, taking a moment to adjust, though it was easier for him this time. 

“Oh your God is right,” he breathed against my ear, before, what felt like, my ascension. 

It was time for Fajr already, but I was dawdling. Nico and I had finally gotten our fill, which to my delight, had taken a very long time. Now he curled into my chest, eyes half-lidded. 

“What are you thinking?” he asked, quietly. 

“I want you to know I’ve had two lovers before you. Once as the man does, once as the woman does.”

His eyes met mine. “Why are you telling me this? You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to. I want you to know me,” I said, “My life.” 

He smiled at me. “I could tell, you know.” 

“Was I your first?” I asked, thinking it finally safe to. 

“Yes – Well, no,” he stammered. “I – I have been with other men. But not – not like – not _sodomy_ like this.”

I didn’t even attempt to repeat that word. I looked him in the eyes, waiting for an explanation. He blushed, deliciously, and I kissed his forehead. 

“With those other men we just used our hands,” he said. “So I’ve never – uh, had a man –inside. I’ve never – inside of another either.” 

I fought my own smile, listening to him stammer, embarrassed. 

He blinked at me. “Did you love them?”

“With all my heart,” I said, “As friends.”

He smiled at me, sadly, and played with my hair. “I didn’t know any of mine well. It was better not to be close, because we were priests, and _sodomy_ is a sin.”

I nodded. I had not experienced this shame in the same way he had, but it felt familiar nonetheless. 

“Where I’m from,” I started, “Love among men is celebrated in poetry, but to actually do the act itself is different. Some still celebrate it. Others believe to be a man who makes love with other men the way a woman does is…people do not like this. They think men who make love like women are as low as women. Well – as low as they think women are. Lower, even. This is why I write the poems I do. So that I can write about loving men and – well, hating men who hate me for loving men. I want people to see it in life the way they see it in poetry. If it is beautiful written it is beautiful always. I don’t want to be different. I don’t feel like I have less, or like I am less. I don’t think God made me less. One day – I have faith people will see.”

I waited for him to respond, but he was silent a moment too long. I jostled to look at him, thinking he may have fallen asleep finally, but I found his eyes open, and tears falling. 

“Oh, my heart,” I said, wiping his tears away. “Don’t cry. Why are you crying? Don’t.”

He didn’t respond, and instead kissed me, long and slow. Passionate as always, but without any fire. All sweet. 

When he finally let me go, he grumbled, “You’re late to Fajr.”

“Don’t grieve, my heart,” I teased, and kissed his nose. “I’ll return to kiss you again soon.”

When I got back, he was fast asleep, curled on his side like a cat. 

Come midday, the both of us were finally awake, and again spent from love-making, while somehow still desperate for more. 

Against his lips, practically kissing him still, I crooned, “We should head into town. Get a room. Stay inside all month. Nothing but this.”

He yanked his head away, pulling me out of my dreamy, horny, haze. This was not the affect I wanted. 

“What about Jerusalem?” he asked.

“It will still be there,” I said, “What’s wrong?”

“People need help now,” he said.

I softened. I had not realized how much this was still at the forefront of his mind. I, too, wanted to go back to Jerusalem. But as far as I was concerned, I was happy to help and fight however I could wherever I was. After all, there were people everywhere who needed help.

But it was different for him. He felt responsible – and _was_ responsible, I knew, though I didn’t like to remind myself. He would help anybody just like I would, but he didn’t want to help just anybody. He wanted to help the people he’d hurt. He wanted to stop the people he once fought beside. 

“Alright, my heart,” I said, “We make way to Jerusalem today. But we still need to go into town. At least for some food.”

He blushed then. “And olive oil.” 

“Oh,” I said, smirking. “How could I forget? We’ll need it for our meals.”

“No –” he started.

“No, you’re right, my heart. I have been holding back too much. We should –”

“Stop it,” he said, already exasperated with my jest. 

“But Nico, I know how you like your dinner –”

“ _Stop_ ,” he said, “Dear God. Never for food again.”

“Never?” I asked, my eyebrows shooting up. “But what about –”

“Oh my God,” he said, rolling his eyes and pushing me off of him, even as I laughed at his burning face. 

I laced my fingers behind my head and fell back on the bedroll, utterly pleased with myself. 

Nico shook his head, but laid down beside me again.

A minute of comfortable silence passed, me lazily playing with his hair, him humming to himself. I was tempted, truly, to do this all day. 

Then he said, without a hint of humor, “Let’s not. It’s not as if we need oil for anything –”

“What?” I gasped, and he instantly snapped his head up to grin at me.

“Am I, my love, my heart, my soul – to take that as a sign you too would like olive oil for this?”

And then he, without warning, reached down to smack my ass. I clapped a hand over my mouth to douse my shocked yelp which made him laugh hysterically. A second later I had tackled him onto his back, straddling him, and kissing him like I had no need to breathe. 

“We’re stopping at the first place we see and buying all of it,” I managed to say, and he didn’t even bother to give me a spoken answer, just nodded erratically into our kissing. 

It would be another hour before we managed to get dressed and leave. And even then, it was only because we were out of olive oil.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are curioius, my tumblr URL is kill-your-authors@tumblr.com.


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